The Complete Viewer's Guide to the 75th Annual Academy Awards
© Jason O'Brien
So as the Academy looks to go on with the show, I will as well ... and it's time for my annual Viewer's Guide to the Academy Awards and Oscar Weekend, giving you all the viewing information you need to know for this weekend and Sunday night.
So here is all the information you need to know about the 75th Annual Academy Awards and Oscar Weekend. Returning for his second opportunity to host the Academy Awards this year is comedian Steve Martin, who received great reviews when he first hosted two years ago. A veteran producer of the Oscar telecast is back to helm the big 75th anniversary show ... Gil Cates is producing the Oscar telecast for his 11th time.
The ceremony will be held for the second year in a row at the new theater specifically built for the Academy Awards, the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. As we saw at last year's ceremony, the Kodak is an absolutely gorgeous theater and a perfect setting for the Oscars. It's interesting to note that the Kodak Theater is located directly across the street from the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, where the first Academy Awards ceremony was held on May 16, 1929. Oscar winning film music composer Bill Conti will be back as the musical director of the Academy Awards Orchestra, marking the 16th time that Conti has conducted at the Oscars. He's also affectionately known as "Stick Man" (if you remember, Julia Roberts called him that in 2000 when she was giving her acceptance speech, and she kept telling him not to start up the orchestra to play her off when they felt her speech was going too long!)
As of this morning, the Academy Awards are still scheduled to go forward as planned, this Sunday night, televised again on ABC. For the fifth year in a row, the Academy will produce its own Oscar Pre-Show a half hour before the ceremony. The pre-show was scheduled to be hosted by Jann Carl, Chris Connelly, Jim Moret, and Shaun Robinson, but this was when the original
